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Dubai Culture Opens Participation in Al Marmoom Short-Film Competition

The competition aims to enrich the local film scene, provide an innovative platform to support filmmakers and encourage them to share their experiences. WAM
The competition aims to enrich the local film scene, provide an innovative platform to support filmmakers and encourage them to share their experiences. WAM
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Dubai Culture Opens Participation in Al Marmoom Short-Film Competition

The competition aims to enrich the local film scene, provide an innovative platform to support filmmakers and encourage them to share their experiences. WAM
The competition aims to enrich the local film scene, provide an innovative platform to support filmmakers and encourage them to share their experiences. WAM

Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (Dubai Culture) has launched the open call for the Al Marmoom Short-Film Competition, held as part of the fourth Al Marmoom: Film in the Desert festival, Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported.

The competition aims to enrich the local film scene, provide an innovative platform to support filmmakers and encourage them to share their experiences and knowledge, inspiring new talent to join this field, WAM said Wednesday.

Dubai Culture invited all emerging filmmakers and creatives locally, regionally, and globally to participate and submit their works for the festival’s competition.

Applications are open from August 14 to September 30, after which a specialized committee comprising a group of experts, directors, and filmmakers will screen the applications and evaluate the submitted films, in preparation for announcing the list competing for the festival awards, which will be held at Al Marmoom Desert Conservation Reserve from January 3 to 12, 2025.

The competition includes four categories: documentaries, animated films, live-action, and films made using artificial intelligence. Eligible works will be selected based on a set of criteria related to quality and content. This open call targets all emerging filmmakers and directors, whether working individually or in groups, WAM said.

Participants are required to present distinctive ideas that express their artistic visions and commitment to innovation, in addition to ensuring that the work is original, recent, and not previously shown in any local, regional, or global festival or event.

The film should be between 3 and 30 minutes long, free from any offence to public morals, religions, or communities, and the participant must own all rights to the short film.

The previous Al Marmoom Short-Film Competition saw 56 short films competing within its three categories.

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Stonehenge’s ‘Altar Stone’ Originally Came from Scotland, Not Wales, New Research Shows

The world heritage site of Stonehenge is seen in Wiltshire, England on Dec. 17, 2013. (AP)
The world heritage site of Stonehenge is seen in Wiltshire, England on Dec. 17, 2013. (AP)
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Stonehenge’s ‘Altar Stone’ Originally Came from Scotland, Not Wales, New Research Shows

The world heritage site of Stonehenge is seen in Wiltshire, England on Dec. 17, 2013. (AP)
The world heritage site of Stonehenge is seen in Wiltshire, England on Dec. 17, 2013. (AP)

The ancient ritual meaning of Stonehenge is still a mystery, but researchers are one step closer to understanding how the famous stone circle was created.

The unique stone lying flat at the center of the monument was brought to the site in southern England from near the tip of northeast Scotland, researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Nature. It’s not clear whether the 16-foot (5-meter) stone was carried by boat or through land — a journey of more than 460 miles (740 kilometers).

“It’s a surprise that it’s come from so far away,” said University of Exeter archaeologist Susan Greaney, who was not involved in the study.

For more than a hundred years, scientists believed that Stonehenge’s central sandstone slab — long called the “altar stone” — came from much closer Wales. But a study last year by some of the same researchers showed that the stone didn’t match the geology of Wales’ sandstone formations. The actual source of the stone remained unknown until now.

For the study, the team was not permitted to chip away rocks at the site, but instead analyzed minerals in bits of rock that had been collected in previous digs, some dating back to the 1840s. They found a match in the sandstone formations of Orcadian Basin in northeast Scotland, a region that includes parts of the tip of the Scottish peninsula as well as the Orkney Islands.

“That geological ‘fingerprint’ isn’t repeated in any other area of sediment in the UK,” said Aberystwyth University geologist Nick Pearce, a study co-author.

Greaney said the difficult logistics of moving the stone such a long distance show a high level of coordination and cultural connection between these two regions of ancient Britain.

Stonehenge was constructed around 5,000 years ago, with stones forming different circles brought to the site at different times. The placement of stones allows for the sun to rise through a stone “window” during summer solstice. The ancient purpose of the altar stone — which lies flat at the heart of Stonehenge, now beneath other rocks — remains a mystery.

“Stonehenge isn’t a settlement site, but a place of ceremony or ritual,” said Heather Sebire, senior curator at English Heritage, who was not involved in the study. She said that past archaeological excavations had not uncovered evidence of feasting or daily living at the site.

Previous research has shown cultural connections — such as similarities in pottery styles — between the area around Stonehenge and Scotland’s Orkney Islands. Other stones at Stonehenge came from western Wales.

While Britain is dotted with other Neolithic stone circles, “the thing that’s unique about Stonehenge is the distance from which the stones have been sourced,” said Aberystwyth University’s Richard Bevins, a study co-author.